BusinessWeek: Will Metro be dethroned?
By Leah McBride Mensching, Thursday 25 October 2007 at 22:34 :: Competition :: #759 :: rss
Will Metro International, the “Free Dailies King” be dethroned by other free dailies following in its footsteps?
BusinessWeek talked to analysts who say that this may be so, as competitors usually have businesses outside free dailies to fall back on. Not so with Metro.
Piet Bakker, an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam who also writes the Newspaper Innovation blog about free dailies, told BusinessWeek that Metro is in a “precarious position” because it has no other business to fall back on, should the free daily market go bust. One of Metro's top challengers is 20 Minutes, owned by the Norwegian media group's Schibsted, which also owns traditional newspapers and magazines, television and online operations.
20 Minutes has 2.4 million readers in Spain, compared to Metro's 1.7 million there. In France, Metro has 2 million, while 20 Minutes has 2.4 million.
Part of the gap could be do to 20 Minutes emphasizing local news more than Metro does, as well as writing in a lighter tone and having more exciting images and designs, Patrick Bartement, director general of OJD, a circulation auditing group in France, told BusinessWeek.
The free daily market kingdom may be up for grabs, and the new ruler could be the one “who has the deepest pockets,” Bakker told BusinessWeek.
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